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WASHINGTON — Texas officials rebutted President Barack Obama's statement that the U.S.-Mexico border is secure and told a congressional panel Wednesday that cartel-related crimes in this country are underreported.

“There are consequences when you don't secure the border,” McCraw told the subcommittee. “There has been a proliferation of organized crime in Texas.”

Republicans on the House Homeland Security subcommittee on oversight and investigations asked officials from Texas to give a rebuttal to U.S. officials' claims that the 1,969-mile border is secure.

Amy Pope, a U.S. attorney general deputy chief of staff, said there hasn't been a “significant spike” in crime on the U.S. side of the Southwest border associated with the drug war raging in Mexico.

And a Homeland Security Department official said the crimes that are committed along the U.S. border are not like those seen by drug trafficking or the cartels in Mexico.

“We are not seeing the level of crime and overall viciousness that you are seeing in Mexico,” said Grayling Williams, Homeland Security Department director of counternarcotics enforcement.

But Republicans on the subcommittee questioned the justice and homeland security officials about how crimes are classified. GOP lawmakers said crimes like attempted murder and kidnappings should be considered “spillover violence.”

“The border is not secure and it has never been more violent or dangerous. Anyone who lives down there will tell you that,” said Rep. Mike McCaul, R-Austin, the subcommittee chairman.

Zapata County Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez said the U.S.-Mexico border in rural South Texas is a porous gateway for drugs and weapons flowing both ways — with cartels in control on both sides of the border.

“We have seen armed individuals coming into our country,” Gonzalez said. “We have seen the very ruthless behavior of the cartels.”

Gonzalez recounted attempted kidnappings in Zapata County in 2010 that were ordered by the cartels, as well as the October death of David Hartley, an American, who was gunned down while using a personal watercraft on Falcon Lake, a border reservoir.

Border Democrats have bristled at GOP depictions of lawlessness.

Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo, noted that Hartley was several miles inside Mexico when killed by gunmen.

Cuellar said other recent publicized crimes against Americans, like the shooting death of Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agent Jaime Zapata, took place between San Luis Potosi, Mexico, and Mexico City.

He chided Republicans for creating a “sky is falling” hysteria that negatively impacts businesses and families in U.S. cities along the border.

Cuellar said he supports more resources to strengthen the border, noting: “I'm just asking that we do this in a measured way.”

The testimony came one day after Obama was in El Paso to tout an immigration reform plan and declared the border as secure as it has been for decades.

Obama mocked Republicans for insisting on unreachable thresholds of border security as a way to justify their opposition to comprehensive immigration reform.

“All the stuff they asked for, we've done,” Obama said Tuesday. “Now they're going to say we need to quadruple the Border Patrol. Or they'll want a higher fence. Maybe they'll need a moat. Maybe they want alligators in the moat. They'll never be satisfied.”

Border Patrol has been increased to 20,700 agents, double the number since 2004. All southbound rail cargo to Mexico is being searched for weapons, according to the Homeland Security Department.

Still, McAllen Police Chief Victor Rodriguez said that despite federal efforts, more was needed to prevent crime and better protect Americans living along the Mexican border.

“We have people that are afraid to go out on their property,” Rodriguez said. “That is un-American.”